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Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) Leong Mun Wai has deleted lines from a Facebook post after he was accused of breaching parliamentary privilege this week.

He announced this on Facebook on Thursday (Mar. 23)

The portions which Leong deleted include a line which accused Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam of mentioning the Parti Liyani case to "muddy the waters".

Leong, from the Progress Singapore Party, also deleted a line which said that Shanmugam and Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean had run the risk of turning Parliament into “a platform to colour public opinion on criminal proceedings”.

On Mar. 23, Leong said that he decided to delete those statements after deliberating on Shanmugam's response in Parliament on March 22.

"As I confirmed in Parliament, it was not my intent to cast aspersions on the ministers nor act in an unparliamentary manner. The points were raised solely in the public interest."

However, Leong insisted that it was not appropriate to delete his entire post because that would be a "disproportionate response".

"I have not considered it appropriate to delete the entire post as the minister has asked given that my post made numerous other points which I consider to be valid and to which no objection appears to have been made."

What happened?

The Facebook post at the centre of this was posted by Leong on Mar. 20, after a Parliamentary sitting on the same day. It questioned Shanmugam's characterisation of Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern as having "absconded".

Earlier this week in Parliament, Shanmugam said that the statements made by Leong in his Facebook post constituted an abuse of parliamentary privilege.

In particular, he took issue with the fact that Leong chose not to raise his concerns with his explanation in Parliament, but instead, took to social media afterwards and put up a post "with both improper statements and untrue statements".

Amid a lengthy and heated debate, the minister repeatedly asked Leong to withdraw his statements.

On March 22, Leong withdrew one statement he made in Parliament, where he said that all the individuals in the Keppel OM case "have been found guilty" after he was informed otherwise by Shanmugam.

However, he refused to withdraw his statement that Shanmugam's reference to the Parti Liyani case was an attempt to "muddy the waters".

Shanmugam had mentioned the case, and the revelation of Karl Liew's identity while under investigation by the police, to demonstrate there were certain instances where the police would do so.

Shanmugam noted that Leong did not object to Karl Liew's identity being divulged at the time, but was doing so for Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern.

Shanmugam also brought up past instances of Leong's "unparliamentary behaviour", citing multiple occasions where the NCMP had to apologise for making unsubstantiated allegations.

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Top image: MCI/YouTube, Leong Mun Wai 梁文辉/Facebook